Mass. single-family home sales rose 10 percent in January

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The local housing market continued to show signs of recovery in January as the number of single-family homes sold in Massachusetts rose more than 10 percent on a year-to-year basis, the Warren Group said Tuesday.

With 2,680 single-family homes sold last month, it was the best January since 2007, said the Warren Group, a Boston firm that tracks real estate activity.

Meanwhile, the median sale prices of single-family home in the Bay State rose 6.8 percent in January to $277,750 as low inventory is slowly driving up prices, the firm said.

“We ended 2012 on a pretty positive note, and this is carrying into January,” Warren Group chief executive Timothy M. Warren Jr. said in a statement. “Recent pending sales data are a hopeful sign for a strong spring market. And given low mortgage rates and steady prices, there are positive signs that 2013 will be a second year of recovery.”

The Massachusetts housing market made a comeback last year, with its best showing since 2006, the firm reported last month.

As for condos, 1,006 units were sold in the state during January, up nearly 11 percent on a year-to-year basis, the Warren Group said.

But the median condo price in January fell nearly 2 percent to $240,000, the lowest price for condos statewide since 2009.

Separately, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors also issued a monthly report on the local housing market. The association and the Warren Group use slightly different methods to track residential real estate activity.

“The Massachusetts real estate market was active in the fourth quarter of last year, and that has resulted in a strong start to 2013,” Kimberly Allard-Moccia, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said in a statement. “Buyer activity remains high, but now we look to the home sellers to ‘get off the fence’ and put their homes on the market.”

As of Jan. 31, the inventory of single-family homes on the market in Massachusetts was down 27.3 percent from the same day a year ago, the association said.